


double-take

by astrogeny



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: M/M, Morning After, embarrassing and highly visible bite marks, they actually brush their teeth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-03-22
Packaged: 2018-03-19 00:23:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3589377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrogeny/pseuds/astrogeny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inigo damns himself once for a light sleeper when Gerome shakes his shoulder, twice when he cracks open one eye to see that the sun has yet to rise.  If he slept as obliviously as, say, Cynthia, he’d likely be a dead man by now, but death looks increasingly enticing in comparison to being woken up at five in the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	double-take

**Author's Note:**

> hokey azujero morning after fic, or: a tour de force of my incredibly mundane hcs and my indomitable fondness for just writing ppl having what are hopefully natural-flowing conversations. will i ever write the prequel to this?? well,

Inigo damns himself once for a light sleeper when Gerome shakes his shoulder, twice when he cracks open one eye to see that the sun has yet to rise.  If he slept as obliviously as, say, Cynthia, he’d likely be a dead man by now, but death looks increasingly enticing in comparison to being woken up at five in the morning.

“Inigo,” Gerome says, and Inigo knows this is his final warning—he has yet to find a way to turn Gerome’s willingness to bodily drag him from bed by the ankles into feasible blackmail fodder.  

“If the sun’s not awake,  _I’m_  not awake,” though he’s completely, resentfully lucid right now, “If you mean to forego sleep entirely, you might as well commit to it and leave me out of it.”  Even as he’s talking, Inigo forces himself to sit up, putting on his best woebegone face that goes entirely wasted on Gerome’s turned back.  A quick peek under the covers—pants?  Yes, he’s got pants on, which is well enough.  The predawn air in Gerome’s tent isn’t so cold that contact with it sends Inigo scrambling for a shirt—or better yet, scrambling back beneath the covers.  He bids a silent, sorrowful farewell to Gerome’s wonderfully warm and quite possibly hand-knitted blankets, the dead-squirrel taste in his mouth making for a decent counter-motivation to get up and clean his teeth.  Gerome’s hair is already immaculately slicked back, and Inigo suspects half the reason he gets up so early is to make sure no one sees him with bedhead.  Teeth de-squirreled to a satisfying result, Inigo takes Gerome’s camp mirror and tweaks it down, just to be contrary.  There are only three or so inches of height between them, just enough for a mirror at Gerome’s eye level to cut off the important things for Inigo.  Hair could be better, face is looking winsome, neck is sporting a prominent bite mark right where it meets his shoulder.  Inigo does a double-take at the last one, Gerome uses the chance to tilt the mirror back up to his liking.  Immediately, Inigo jerks it back down.

“What is this?” he asks, voice rising in what is not entirely mock offense.  Gerome’s expression is somewhere between baffled and irked until he figures out what Inigo is referring to.  He smooths his countenance out, but the tips of his ears are faintly pink.  It’s something Inigo finds much more endearing when he hasn’t been on the end of a highly visible nighttime mauling.

“That would be.  A bite mark,” Gerome says stiltedly, trying to keep his voice even.

“Oh?” archly, in a bid to hide his own embarrassment.

“You hardly seemed displeased by it…previously,” the latest and greatest in Gerome’s unending string of vague terminology for anything even remotely physical between them.

“Well, I hadn’t noticed it ‘previously’, given that I was…”  Inigo trails off, not quite willing to vocalize that he was ‘previously’ in the midst of an intimate encounter with Gerome’s woefully flat but otherwise wholly satisfying posterior.  “That I was distracted.  By other things.”

“Cover it,” is Gerome’s suggestion, extra-taciturn out of his own humiliation.  His ears are now a rather vibrant shade of red.

“I can’t!”

“If you’ve forgotten how to fasten a shirt all the way up, I would be more than happy to remind you how it’s done.”

“No, I mean I haven’t  _got_  any shirts that go all the way up,” Inigo whines.  “I always take the top button out, it isn’t as if I’m ever going to use it.”

Gerome fixes him with a stare that is meant to be imposing or judgmental, the impact is still splendidly ruined by his blushing ears.  “The underclothes to your Hero’s armor have a high collar, do they not?  Wear those.”

“Ugh, and roast like a lobster all day?  And I mean that quite literally, that armor is—good gods,” cutting himself off as he turns around, the reflection of his back in the mirror sporting long scratch marks raked down his shoulder blades and back.  “I look like I’ve been attacked by a wyvern,” Inigo declares glumly.  

“You wouldn’t survive that,” and Inigo supposes this is Gerome’s bizarre, dry sense of humor being teased out here.

“A wyvern in  _heat_ ,” Inigo carries on, playfully knocking his hip against Gerome’s.  Gerome makes a final-sounding sort of “mmph” noise, bringing an end to the discussion by sheer virtue of refusing to speak to the matter any longer.  Then again, it might just be that he’s moved on to shaving off what appears to be the beginnings of a truly unfortunate mustache.  Not to be ignored, Inigo makes a great show of feeling his own cheeks, which remain blissfully free of even the faintest wisps of awkward, peachy fuzz.  “D’you think I need a shave?”  Gerome actually appears to consider the question in earnest, until finally,

“I don’t believe I’ve ever witnessed you shaving.”

“I didn’t mean my face,” and he’s saying it half as a joke, half for the way Gerome’s gaze slowly slides down towards his waistband and back up again.

“You are far too crass for me this morning,” Gerome remarks with a slight air of world-weariness.

“Why, I never,” as if he doesn’t backpedal out of his own attempts at dirty jokes half the time out of sheer embarrassment.  Inigo fetches his shirt off the floor, and pulls it over his head just in time to see Gerome’s mouth twist in what is either disapproval or the start of a begrudging smile.  “Look, have you ever heard of a hairy dancer?”  Inigo asks.  “Because I haven’t, and that’s a trail I don’t intend to blaze.”

“The matter is….  Not a routine part of my toilette.”  Again, Gerome refuses to comment further on the subject, though a deferral is a marked improvement over a grunt, or him just walking off entirely.  Inigo considers it fine progress, trying in vain to make the deep-cut neckline of his shirt cover the offending bite mark.  “Give it here,” Gerome insists, apparently tired of watching Inigo struggle.  “I’ll sew it up.”

“And what if my head doesn’t fit back into the shirt?  Last night’s shirt, I might add,” still slipping it off and proffering it to Gerome, who has already produced a needle and thread from gods know where.  

“You’re more than capable of bringing a change, should the matter bother you so,” is Gerome’s response as the needle darts in and out of the fabric.  “Failing that, you might get out of bed when I wake you, and return to your own tent unseen.”

“Or I might be kind to myself and not do that,” Inigo quips back—the day he admits he could solve his own problems by going to sleep earlier is the day he gives himself up to the grave.  With Inigo’s shirt now a serviceable hickey-concealer, Gerome turns his attention to putting on his mask.  Inigo routinely considers pasting decals on the thing or carving little flowers across the surface, but the thought of a cold, lonely bed doesn’t strike him as an appealing price to pay for the prank.  “Here,” he offers, reaching back around Gerome’s head to fasten the mask, even as Gerome grumbles something about it being unnecessary.  They look each other in the eyes for a brief moment (at least, Inigo assumes Gerome is meeting his gaze) before Inigo reluctantly withdraws with a slightly over-affected sigh.  “Well, I’ll be off, then.  Off on the walk of shame, all by my lonesome, while you commit yourself to the tender, loving embrace of dear Minervykins.”  He makes a great show of moving to exit the tent, until Gerome puts a hand somewhat hesitantly on Inigo’s forearm.

“Inigo,” he begins, and seems like he means to say more before opting for a brief kiss instead.  His breath on Inigo’s lips smells faintly of rosemary, which is oddly endearing.  Inigo is already smiling before they break apart, the kind of foolhardy, sentimental grin that he has to trick himself into wearing, because it gives him what are in his opinion deeply unflattering dimples.

“You have a good day now, O Lone Masked Warrior of Darkness,” Inigo teases softly, making his exit.  A moment later, Gerome’s head pops out from the tent flap.

“I’ve never laid claim to such an absurd title,” he protests, and Inigo laughs it off with a wave.  He still wishes he were comfortably abed, though.


End file.
